1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to computer systems and, in particular, to a system and method for dynamically changing which optical character recognition (OCR) package is used to analyze an image captured by an optical scanner.
2. Related Art
Optical character recognition (OCR) scanning systems create electronic or software copies of textual documents. In this regard, each OCR scanning system includes a scanning device that captures an image of a document. Software, referred to as an xe2x80x9cOCR package, xe2x80x9d associated with the scanning system is then executed to analyze the captured image in order to interpret the text of the scanned document. Once the text is determined by the OCR package, a software copy of the text is created which can be stored and manipulated according to conventional processing techniques. U.S. Pat. No. 5,212,739 entitled, xe2x80x9cNoise Tolerant Optical Character Recognition System, xe2x80x9d which is incorporated herein by reference, describes an OCR system capable of analyzing a scanned image to create a software copy of the text included within the scanned image.
In order to improve performance of the scanning system, it is desirable for the OCR package to be specifically tailored to the language of the scanned document. For example, the characters and words used by different languages (e.g., English, French, Spanish, etc.) are often different. Therefore, to achieve the best results, one OCR package specifically tailored for English should be used to interpret the image of an English document, and another OCR specifically tailored for French should be used to interpret the image of a French document.
Unfortunately, most OCR scanning systems do not provide the capability of dynamically switching which OCR packages are used to analyze and interpret the documents scanned by the OCR scanning system. In this regard, most conventional OCR scanning systems are initialized to use a particular OCR package. Some systems allow the user to select a particular OCR package at initialization while other systems are automatically initialized to use a default OCR package. The system utilizes the OCR package selected during initialization to analyze and interpret each document scanned by the system. If the user wishes to utilize a different OCR package after initialization, the user is usually required to reinstall the scanning application along with the different OCR package so that the system may be initialized to use the different OCR package.
As a result, significant delays are experienced when the user needs to scan a document with an OCR scanning system that has not been initialized to use the proper OCR package for analyzing the document. Thus, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the industry for providing a system and method for efficiently switching the OCR package used to analyze and interpret the text of a scanned document.
The present invention overcomes the inadequacies and deficiencies of the prior art as discussed hereinbefore. In general, the present invention provides a system and method for dynamically switching OCR packages used to analyze and interpret the text of scanned documents.
The present invention utilizes a memory device, a registry, a scanning application, a processor, and a scanning device. The scanning device is configured to capture an image of a document in response to a scan command from the scanning application. The scanning application locally stores a set of current parameter values indicating the location in the memory device of the OCR package that should be used to currently analyze and interpret images produced by the scanning device. If the scanning application receives a message to update the current parameter values, the scanning application retrieves new parameter values from the registry and stores these values in the memory device as the current parameter values. If the scanning application receives a message to initiate a document scan, the scanning application transmits the scan command to the scanning device and retrieves the current parameter values from the memory device. The processor uses these retrieved parameter values to locate code defining an OCR package. Once the OCR package is located, the processor executes the OCR package to analyze and interpret the image produced by the scanning device.
In accordance with another feature of the present invention, an OCR utility is configured to interface with a user to determine when the user would like to select a new OCR package. When the user would like to select a new OCR package, the OCR utility updates the registry then transmits an update notification to the scanning application.
The present invention can also be viewed as providing an OCR method for electronically scanning text of documents into memory. Briefly described, the method can be broadly conceptualized by the following steps: providing a scanning device; providing a plurality of OCR packages to analyze images captured by the scanning device; capturing an image of a document via the scanning device; enabling a user to dynamically select one of the OCR packages to analyze the image captured by the scanning device; indicating which of a plurality of OCR packages is selected by the user to analyze the image; and analyzing the image with the OCR package that is indicated as being selected by the user in the indicating step.
The present invention has many advantages, a few of which are delineated hereafter, as mere examples.
An advantage of the present invention is that the OCR packages used to analyze and interpret the text of a scanned image may be quickly and easily switched.
Another advantage of the present invention is that the efficiency of an OCR scanning system can be increased.
Another advantage of the present invention is that documents written in different languages can be scanned by the same OCR scanning system.
Other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to one skilled in the art upon examination of the following detailed description, when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. It is intended that all such features and advantages be included herein within the scope of the present invention, as is defined by the claims.